Loud Loft

Ira Glass on Storytelling

Ok - in my nearly 30 years of trying to tell a story with images and sound, I've never heard such a concise wrap up of the trials and tribulations of doing so.

It's in four parts - but they aren't long. Here's the links

Part #1 Telling a story vs. writing a story
Part #2 Finding the story is as hard as crafting the story
Part #3 You have great taste, so you know your early stuff stinks. Don’t quit.
Part #4 Be yourself. Take it from a guy who obviously practices what he preaches.

There . . . 19 minutes of your life invested and you will understand more about this art form than after four years of higher education. Such a deal!

Disclaimer - I stole some of this from another blog site, The TV Weasel by Frank Capria. Check it out.

BTW Ira Glass does the radio show/podcast "This American Life" from PBS

I would still go see it though . . .

Having let it sit a little - The Chronicles of Narnia was just a "good" movie. I would still go see it and would strongly encourage you, dear reader, to see it for yourself to form your own opinion. It may just have been too much of a "kid" movie for me to get excited about. For that same reason, many of you with kids should probably be excited about it.

For me, the execution/manifestation of the story line was a little weak. I've mentioned that it felt that the young actors might have been in a little over their head and also that the animated good/bad guys looked as if they were left over characters from a video game. Still, the mythical elements were interesting and the plot was certainly compelling to my taste - I just was expecting more . . . and not in a "tell me more" sort of way but in a "is that all there is?" sort of way.

If you've seen the movie and read the book - please chime in with your thoughts. I may be looking at this far too much from an "adult" perspective (never thought that would be a problem) and not enough from the perspective of the intended reader. Yes, I know that these books can operate on multiple planes and appeal to a wide age range - but my assumption is that the intended first audience is younger rather than older.

I still recommend the movie and it's worth a trip to the theatre. The story line "is" compelling and it does speak to me at a very emotional level. That's something to say for any movie . . .